There are various types of explosive composition that are used in commercial mining and blasting operations. The context of use will dictate the explosive composition that is employed based on such factors as the energy release characteristics of the explosive composition and current commercial explosives offer a range of shock and heave energies. For example, ANFO (ammonium nitrate/fuel oil) tends to provide low shock energy and high heave energy and this tends to be thought of as an excellent combination for many rock blasting and collection applications. In contrast, emulsion based explosives tend to provide high shock energy and low heave energy. It would be desirable to control the energy release characteristics of emulsion-based explosives in terms of shock and heave energies thereby increasing the range of practical use of such explosives. It would be particularly desirable to provide emulsion-based explosives that behave more like ANFO with respect to detonation performance.
There is also a need to have a greater understanding of the structural features of explosive formulations and how these structural features influence detonation characteristics. In turn, it is believed that this understanding will facilitate the design of explosive formulations that have novel (internal) structures, novel detonation characteristics and energy release profiles that can be manipulated and tailored to a particular context of use.